What do you think?
Rate this book
10/7: 100 Human Stories
The definitive account of the 10/7 massacre through the stories of its victims and the communities they called home.
On October 7, 2023—the Sabbath and the final day of the holiday of Sukkot—the Gaza-based terror group Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on the people of Israel. Crashing through the border, attacking from the sea and air, militants indiscriminately massacred civilians in what became one of the worst terror attacks in modern history, and the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
A radically passionate work of investigative journalism and political critique by acclaimed Haaretz reporter Lee Yaron, 10/7 chronicles the massacre that ignited a war through the stories of more than 100 civilians. These stories are the products of extensive interviews with survivors, the bereaved, and first responders in Israel and beyond. The victims run the gamut from left-wing kibbutzniks and Burning Man-esque partiers to radical right-wingers, from Bedouins and Israeli Arabs to Thai and Nepalese guest workers, peace activists, elderly Holocaust survivors, refugees from Ukraine and Russia, pregnant women, and babies.
At a time when people are seeking a deeper understanding of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how internal political turmoil in Israel has affected it, they predominantly encounter perspectives from the powerful—from politicians and military officers. 10/7 takes a fresh approach, offering answers through the stories of everyday people, those who lived tenuously on the border with Gaza.
Yaron profiles victims from every massacre site—depicting the fullness of their lives, not just their final moments—to honor their memories and reveal the way the attack ripped open Israeli society and put the entire Middle East on the precipice of disaster. Each chapter begins with a portrait of a community, interweaving history with broader political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to provide context for the narratives that follow.
Ultimately, 10/7 shows that the tragedy is much greater than the violence of the attacks, and in fact extends back through the entire Netanyahu era, which propagated a false image of Israel as a technologically advanced, militarily formidable powerhouse so essential to the region that it could continue to ignore and undermine Palestinian statehood indefinitely.
On October 7, 2023—the Sabbath and the final day of the holiday of Sukkot—the Gaza-based terror group Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on the people of Israel. Crashing through the border, attacking from the sea and air, militants indiscriminately massacred civilians in what became one of the worst terror attacks in modern history, and the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
A radically passionate work of investigative journalism and political critique by acclaimed Haaretz reporter Lee Yaron, 10/7 chronicles the massacre that ignited a war through the stories of more than 100 civilians. These stories are the products of extensive interviews with survivors, the bereaved, and first responders in Israel and beyond. The victims run the gamut from left-wing kibbutzniks and Burning Man-esque partiers to radical right-wingers, from Bedouins and Israeli Arabs to Thai and Nepalese guest workers, peace activists, elderly Holocaust survivors, refugees from Ukraine and Russia, pregnant women, and babies.
At a time when people are seeking a deeper understanding of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how internal political turmoil in Israel has affected it, they predominantly encounter perspectives from the powerful—from politicians and military officers. 10/7 takes a fresh approach, offering answers through the stories of everyday people, those who lived tenuously on the border with Gaza.
Yaron profiles victims from every massacre site—depicting the fullness of their lives, not just their final moments—to honor their memories and reveal the way the attack ripped open Israeli society and put the entire Middle East on the precipice of disaster. Each chapter begins with a portrait of a community, interweaving history with broader political analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to provide context for the narratives that follow.
Ultimately, 10/7 shows that the tragedy is much greater than the violence of the attacks, and in fact extends back through the entire Netanyahu era, which propagated a false image of Israel as a technologically advanced, militarily formidable powerhouse so essential to the region that it could continue to ignore and undermine Palestinian statehood indefinitely.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published September 24, 2024
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
July 17, 2026
The Jewish tradition of “sitting shiva”—of observing a ritual mourning period following a death—is derived from the Hebrew word sheva, meaning “seven.” In the book of Genesis, Joseph, after burying his father, Jacob, “mourned with a great and very sore lamentation” for seven days. In the prophetic book of Job, Job loses his wife, his seven sons, and his three daughters, following which his companions sit him down on the ground—down in the dust—and attempt to comfort him for seven nights and seven days.
Millennia later, in the lands of the Bible as among Jewish communities worldwide, the ritual still follows the ancient formula: The seven days of mourning commence with the day of burial, as the immediate family members are compelled to “sit.” During this time, any semblance of daily routine is forbidden: A mourner may neither work nor cook, clean the house nor bathe. They must remain in the home of the deceased, sitting as close to the ground as possible, embodying the lowness of their sorrow. The door must be left open to any comforters who wish to visit; their role is to help to carry out the family’s everyday tasks.
Throughout this period, the mourners must abstain from pleasure. They must tear their clothes, to demonstrate the rip in their souls and to show the unimportance of terrestrial trappings. They must also cover their mirrors, so as not to be distracted by appearances as they turn their gaze inward.
Seven full days, the span it took God to create the world and all living things, is barely enough for us humans to mourn one single life, to rise above our lamentation.
Judaism, which has commandments that govern every aspect of human experience from birth to death, offers little guidance on how to hold the kind of shiva required following a massacre such as the one that occurred on October 7, 2023—shiva b’October in Hebrew—or the war that came in its wake.
If one has lost one’s son, daughter, mother, and husband, all on the same day, should they be mourned collectively, or is there a certain order? Should one sit seven days of shiva for each individual or sit collectively for one weeklong stretch? What does one do without a body to bury? Or if the body is held in captivity—should one start mourning without a burial or wait for the corpse’s return? Or if the body is in fragments—should one bury the fragment, mourning a single limb or tooth? What is the role of the comforters if they themselves are in mourning? And how to mark shiva’s end, without a routine, or even a home, to return to, especially in the midst of war?
***
It was around nine o’clock when Haim finally arrived at the site of the Nova music festival. About forty volunteers filtered into the festival area, answering Haim’s call. They arranged all the bodies under one large tent, making a macabre dance floor of corpses. The missiles continued to fall near them all night; at times, they had to lie down among the bodies as a shelter.
Near one of these tents, he found a young half-naked woman in her twenties, her purple skirt pulled up to her stomach. Her underwear had been removed. She had been shot at least once in her vagina and again in the center of her head. Haim adjusted the girl’s skirt before carefully tending to her body: photographing it, cleaning it, wrapping it, putting it into a bag.
Nearby, he found another young woman, also shot, once in the head, once in the ear; her neck had been slit and she was topless. Yet another girl was lying on her back. She had been gutted, and her intestines had been ripped out of her and hung down in thick tubes between her legs. Haim covered her.
Further on, he found a woman half-naked, ripped out of her white dress. Another woman, shot in the head, wearing bold green hiking socks. There were so many, executed in so similar a fashion, that they became distinguishable by their clothing alone: this one wearing a tracksuit, that one wearing white jeans, another in a purple halter top, all of the clothing soaked through with blood.
Three women were tangled together; they’d all been shot in their vaginas, revealing to Haim what came to be a pattern: an almost ritual slaughter in which women, stripped of their party attire, were shot at close range in their breasts and genitals, or had their breasts and genitals sliced and mutilated with knives. In a few instances, their genitals had been specifically burned: the rest of their corpses were intact, but their vaginas had been set ablaze.
***
Haim received an urgent call from the bus company. They needed him to transport children who had survived the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre to safety at hotels near the Dead Sea. Around 4 A.M., Irit heard the sound of a key turning in the door.
Haim stood at the entrance to their house, crying in a manner Irit hadn’t witnessed before. He struggled to form the sentences, and Irit remembered that so many of his statements sounded like questions: “I couldn’t help.… People boarded my bus half-naked.… They were wrapped in blankets? In towels?… The blood … People were covered in blood? Children covered in blood? Children without socks or shoes? Fathers in their underwear? They ran for their lives? These people saw their families murdered, the most horrible images … and the silence … the entire two-hour drive to the Dead Sea was totally silent.… My bus was full and no one said a word? Even the babies weren’t crying? Not a single child said a single word and what could I do? I couldn’t do anything? I couldn’t help them?”
Haim had withdrawn into himself. He’d been spending days lying in bed watching the news on Channel 14, fixated on every detail of each murder and massacre reported.
As days passed, with the rising numbers of victims and endless news coverage, Haim’s distress grew.
On Wednesday morning, October 25 Haim visited the kindergarten for a few minutes, greeting some of the children he knew from the synagogue, and then he got back into his bus and drove a few minutes to nearby Moshav Neta.
He sent Irit a brief message:
“I apologize.”
Then another one:
“I apologize to my parents, I apologize to our kids.”
A few minutes later, Irit heard breaking news of a shooting in Moshav Neta.
Fearing a terror attack, Irit instructed her children to lock the house.
Then her brother, the police officer, called.
Haim Ben Aryeh, fifty-six, had shot himself to death in the driver’s seat of his bus.
***
It was during her twenty-ninth funeral, at the military cemetery in Kiryat Shaul, Tel Aviv, that Sivan reached her breaking point. As she watched the gravediggers preparing another seventeen graves for the next day, she felt herself falter.
Her twenty-ninth funeral that week was for Sagi Golan, a thirty-year-old high-tech worker from the beachfront city of Herzliya, who had been due to marry his partner of six years, Omer Ohana, just thirteen days after Sagi was murdered.
A few days prior, Sagi and Omer woke up in Herzliya and lingered in bed discussing the vows they were intending to write and the design of their wedding canopy. They’d just received their suits back from the tailor— Sagi’s in light green to match his eyes, Omer’s in cream. They’d planned a wedding in the Judean Desert, between the Judean Mountains and the Dead Sea.
But that morning brought a change of plans—with Sagi checking the news on his phone and jumping out of bed. He was a reserve officer in the IDF, and though he hadn’t been called up yet he knew it was only a matter of time: civilians were being murdered in their homes.
“Just a few days until the wedding,” Sagi told Omer, kissing him goodbye at the door.
“Don’t be a hero,” Omer replied.
The following night, Sagi was killed by Hamas terrorists while rescuing families from Kibbutz Be’eri.
The cotton flowers carefully selected for their wedding were transformed into a wreath for Sagi’s grave. The famous Israeli singer Ivri Lider, whose song they had chosen for their walk up the aisle, ended up performing the same song live at the funeral instead.
In the time between the announcement of Sagi’s death and the funeral, another Casualty Unit officer dismissed all of Omer’s questions regarding Sagi’s death and all his requests regarding the funeral, stating that Omer, as a gay unmarried partner of the deceased, had no official status. Three weeks after Sagi’s death, the Israeli Knesset unanimously passed an amendment officially recognizing LGBTQ victims’ spouses as IDF widows or widowers. Omer Ohana, who hadn’t been able to legally marry, became the first recognized LGBTQ widower in Israeli history.
***
Through the bush, they saw a white Savana van approaching. Five men, dressed in civilian clothing, got out of the van forty yards away. They all carried daggers, and one had a hammer. A light-haired young woman was with them; they were holding her tight. Raz Cohen watched as they tore her clothes off and gathered around her in a semicircle.
Raz Cohen wanted to intervene but knew he would die trying. The terrorists had weapons; he only had branches. One terrorist grabbed the woman by the neck and another placed her hands on the van, then bent her over and started raping her. The others watched. Raz Cohen saw the terrorist stab her repeatedly while raping her. The woman stopped moving and screaming, but the terrorist continued moving inside her dead body.
***
Mahmoud, one of the terrorists, called his father from a victim’s phone. “Hi, Dad. I’m calling you from Mefalsim. Open WhatsApp and see how many I killed. Look how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!”
“May God protect you,” his father responded.
“Dad, I killed ten people with my own hands! Dad, ten with my own hands!”
***
The human tragedy recorded in these pages is devastating and undeniably true. But as a political framework, the book suffers from a frustrating, almost childlike naivety. To witness this slaughter and still preach the fantasy of peaceful coexistence with an ideology sworn to your absolute annihilation is not hope—it is self-deception.
We must separate the reporter’s political delusions from the screams she documented. Her ideological lens is broken, but the blood is real, the grief inside is heavy, permanent, and true. Read this book—not for its naive prescriptions for the future, but because the people deserve to have their reality witnessed.
Millennia later, in the lands of the Bible as among Jewish communities worldwide, the ritual still follows the ancient formula: The seven days of mourning commence with the day of burial, as the immediate family members are compelled to “sit.” During this time, any semblance of daily routine is forbidden: A mourner may neither work nor cook, clean the house nor bathe. They must remain in the home of the deceased, sitting as close to the ground as possible, embodying the lowness of their sorrow. The door must be left open to any comforters who wish to visit; their role is to help to carry out the family’s everyday tasks.
Throughout this period, the mourners must abstain from pleasure. They must tear their clothes, to demonstrate the rip in their souls and to show the unimportance of terrestrial trappings. They must also cover their mirrors, so as not to be distracted by appearances as they turn their gaze inward.
Seven full days, the span it took God to create the world and all living things, is barely enough for us humans to mourn one single life, to rise above our lamentation.
Judaism, which has commandments that govern every aspect of human experience from birth to death, offers little guidance on how to hold the kind of shiva required following a massacre such as the one that occurred on October 7, 2023—shiva b’October in Hebrew—or the war that came in its wake.
If one has lost one’s son, daughter, mother, and husband, all on the same day, should they be mourned collectively, or is there a certain order? Should one sit seven days of shiva for each individual or sit collectively for one weeklong stretch? What does one do without a body to bury? Or if the body is held in captivity—should one start mourning without a burial or wait for the corpse’s return? Or if the body is in fragments—should one bury the fragment, mourning a single limb or tooth? What is the role of the comforters if they themselves are in mourning? And how to mark shiva’s end, without a routine, or even a home, to return to, especially in the midst of war?
***
It was around nine o’clock when Haim finally arrived at the site of the Nova music festival. About forty volunteers filtered into the festival area, answering Haim’s call. They arranged all the bodies under one large tent, making a macabre dance floor of corpses. The missiles continued to fall near them all night; at times, they had to lie down among the bodies as a shelter.
Near one of these tents, he found a young half-naked woman in her twenties, her purple skirt pulled up to her stomach. Her underwear had been removed. She had been shot at least once in her vagina and again in the center of her head. Haim adjusted the girl’s skirt before carefully tending to her body: photographing it, cleaning it, wrapping it, putting it into a bag.
Nearby, he found another young woman, also shot, once in the head, once in the ear; her neck had been slit and she was topless. Yet another girl was lying on her back. She had been gutted, and her intestines had been ripped out of her and hung down in thick tubes between her legs. Haim covered her.
Further on, he found a woman half-naked, ripped out of her white dress. Another woman, shot in the head, wearing bold green hiking socks. There were so many, executed in so similar a fashion, that they became distinguishable by their clothing alone: this one wearing a tracksuit, that one wearing white jeans, another in a purple halter top, all of the clothing soaked through with blood.
Three women were tangled together; they’d all been shot in their vaginas, revealing to Haim what came to be a pattern: an almost ritual slaughter in which women, stripped of their party attire, were shot at close range in their breasts and genitals, or had their breasts and genitals sliced and mutilated with knives. In a few instances, their genitals had been specifically burned: the rest of their corpses were intact, but their vaginas had been set ablaze.
***
Haim received an urgent call from the bus company. They needed him to transport children who had survived the Kibbutz Be’eri massacre to safety at hotels near the Dead Sea. Around 4 A.M., Irit heard the sound of a key turning in the door.
Haim stood at the entrance to their house, crying in a manner Irit hadn’t witnessed before. He struggled to form the sentences, and Irit remembered that so many of his statements sounded like questions: “I couldn’t help.… People boarded my bus half-naked.… They were wrapped in blankets? In towels?… The blood … People were covered in blood? Children covered in blood? Children without socks or shoes? Fathers in their underwear? They ran for their lives? These people saw their families murdered, the most horrible images … and the silence … the entire two-hour drive to the Dead Sea was totally silent.… My bus was full and no one said a word? Even the babies weren’t crying? Not a single child said a single word and what could I do? I couldn’t do anything? I couldn’t help them?”
Haim had withdrawn into himself. He’d been spending days lying in bed watching the news on Channel 14, fixated on every detail of each murder and massacre reported.
As days passed, with the rising numbers of victims and endless news coverage, Haim’s distress grew.
On Wednesday morning, October 25 Haim visited the kindergarten for a few minutes, greeting some of the children he knew from the synagogue, and then he got back into his bus and drove a few minutes to nearby Moshav Neta.
He sent Irit a brief message:
“I apologize.”
Then another one:
“I apologize to my parents, I apologize to our kids.”
A few minutes later, Irit heard breaking news of a shooting in Moshav Neta.
Fearing a terror attack, Irit instructed her children to lock the house.
Then her brother, the police officer, called.
Haim Ben Aryeh, fifty-six, had shot himself to death in the driver’s seat of his bus.
***
It was during her twenty-ninth funeral, at the military cemetery in Kiryat Shaul, Tel Aviv, that Sivan reached her breaking point. As she watched the gravediggers preparing another seventeen graves for the next day, she felt herself falter.
Her twenty-ninth funeral that week was for Sagi Golan, a thirty-year-old high-tech worker from the beachfront city of Herzliya, who had been due to marry his partner of six years, Omer Ohana, just thirteen days after Sagi was murdered.
A few days prior, Sagi and Omer woke up in Herzliya and lingered in bed discussing the vows they were intending to write and the design of their wedding canopy. They’d just received their suits back from the tailor— Sagi’s in light green to match his eyes, Omer’s in cream. They’d planned a wedding in the Judean Desert, between the Judean Mountains and the Dead Sea.
But that morning brought a change of plans—with Sagi checking the news on his phone and jumping out of bed. He was a reserve officer in the IDF, and though he hadn’t been called up yet he knew it was only a matter of time: civilians were being murdered in their homes.
“Just a few days until the wedding,” Sagi told Omer, kissing him goodbye at the door.
“Don’t be a hero,” Omer replied.
The following night, Sagi was killed by Hamas terrorists while rescuing families from Kibbutz Be’eri.
The cotton flowers carefully selected for their wedding were transformed into a wreath for Sagi’s grave. The famous Israeli singer Ivri Lider, whose song they had chosen for their walk up the aisle, ended up performing the same song live at the funeral instead.
In the time between the announcement of Sagi’s death and the funeral, another Casualty Unit officer dismissed all of Omer’s questions regarding Sagi’s death and all his requests regarding the funeral, stating that Omer, as a gay unmarried partner of the deceased, had no official status. Three weeks after Sagi’s death, the Israeli Knesset unanimously passed an amendment officially recognizing LGBTQ victims’ spouses as IDF widows or widowers. Omer Ohana, who hadn’t been able to legally marry, became the first recognized LGBTQ widower in Israeli history.
***
Through the bush, they saw a white Savana van approaching. Five men, dressed in civilian clothing, got out of the van forty yards away. They all carried daggers, and one had a hammer. A light-haired young woman was with them; they were holding her tight. Raz Cohen watched as they tore her clothes off and gathered around her in a semicircle.
Raz Cohen wanted to intervene but knew he would die trying. The terrorists had weapons; he only had branches. One terrorist grabbed the woman by the neck and another placed her hands on the van, then bent her over and started raping her. The others watched. Raz Cohen saw the terrorist stab her repeatedly while raping her. The woman stopped moving and screaming, but the terrorist continued moving inside her dead body.
***
Mahmoud, one of the terrorists, called his father from a victim’s phone. “Hi, Dad. I’m calling you from Mefalsim. Open WhatsApp and see how many I killed. Look how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!”
“May God protect you,” his father responded.
“Dad, I killed ten people with my own hands! Dad, ten with my own hands!”
***
The human tragedy recorded in these pages is devastating and undeniably true. But as a political framework, the book suffers from a frustrating, almost childlike naivety. To witness this slaughter and still preach the fantasy of peaceful coexistence with an ideology sworn to your absolute annihilation is not hope—it is self-deception.
We must separate the reporter’s political delusions from the screams she documented. Her ideological lens is broken, but the blood is real, the grief inside is heavy, permanent, and true. Read this book—not for its naive prescriptions for the future, but because the people deserve to have their reality witnessed.
October 9, 2024
5 stars just aren’t enough.
This is one of the hardest and most devastating books I have ever read. The author introduces us to 100 people living in Israel, tells their back stories (some more detailed than others) and tells us (really shows us) what happened to them on 10/7/23. You are right there with them as they are sheltering in safe rooms, driving frantically to escape the terrorists, calling or texting loved ones to check in or to say goodbye. You are feeling everything they feel, emotionally and physically. The descriptions of the massacre are horrific and may be too much for some readers.
As you get to know some of the victims, it feels like this happened to a loved one. There are some people whose fates were unknown at the time of publication. At least one person committed suicide a few weeks after the events, suffering from survivor’s guilt.
The author does not get into the politics of the region. Her only focus is what happened to these 100 people on 10/7/23, humanizing those who are massacred, tortured, injured, kidnapped or survived.
This book won’t be for everyone, but if you can emotionally cope with the stories, this is a must read. I will say that reading this during the one year anniversary of 10/7/23 was devastating so many levels.
For those who were massacred on 10/7/23: may their memories be a blessing.
This is one of the hardest and most devastating books I have ever read. The author introduces us to 100 people living in Israel, tells their back stories (some more detailed than others) and tells us (really shows us) what happened to them on 10/7/23. You are right there with them as they are sheltering in safe rooms, driving frantically to escape the terrorists, calling or texting loved ones to check in or to say goodbye. You are feeling everything they feel, emotionally and physically. The descriptions of the massacre are horrific and may be too much for some readers.
As you get to know some of the victims, it feels like this happened to a loved one. There are some people whose fates were unknown at the time of publication. At least one person committed suicide a few weeks after the events, suffering from survivor’s guilt.
The author does not get into the politics of the region. Her only focus is what happened to these 100 people on 10/7/23, humanizing those who are massacred, tortured, injured, kidnapped or survived.
This book won’t be for everyone, but if you can emotionally cope with the stories, this is a must read. I will say that reading this during the one year anniversary of 10/7/23 was devastating so many levels.
For those who were massacred on 10/7/23: may their memories be a blessing.
April 30, 2024
This was one of the hardest books I have ever read in my life. Despite that, I think it is such a necessary book. We owe it to the victims of Oct 7 and their families to bear witness to what they endured.
This book was heartbreaking and painful but so moving. I am amazed by the stories of bravery within the horror that the victims faced.
May the memories of all the victims of the October 7th pogrom be a blessing.
This book was heartbreaking and painful but so moving. I am amazed by the stories of bravery within the horror that the victims faced.
May the memories of all the victims of the October 7th pogrom be a blessing.
January 4, 2026
Everyone should bear witness to the tragedy of October 7th.
Lee Yaron's book is not an easy read. In fact, it's one of the most difficult books I've read in my life. But it's deeply important to read, bear witness, and honor the memories of those lost and families impacted.
This book tells the stories of people who lived through this modern day pogrom. It tells of survivors, of their family members who were murdered in cold blood, and of the hostages, many of whom still remain in captivity.
May their memories be a blessing.
I am eternally grateful that the publisher trusted me with an early copy of this book.
Lee Yaron's book is not an easy read. In fact, it's one of the most difficult books I've read in my life. But it's deeply important to read, bear witness, and honor the memories of those lost and families impacted.
This book tells the stories of people who lived through this modern day pogrom. It tells of survivors, of their family members who were murdered in cold blood, and of the hostages, many of whom still remain in captivity.
May their memories be a blessing.
I am eternally grateful that the publisher trusted me with an early copy of this book.
November 22, 2024
Five stars is not enough. This book is an evocative page-turner as much as it is a brilliantly crafted artistic masterpiece. It is a must read for every global citizen.
Yaron brings to life the many individuals and communities undermined by the mainstream media, interwoven with the story of their families and her own. Each story is a tile composing the very mosaic of Israel and the region itself, imprinted on the history of the country and humankind.
Yaron humanizes each of the victims with the dignity they deserve; I could almost see their faces—the smiles then sorrow of the children, the amnesty and anguish of the families, and the legacies that Israel’s eldest sought out, and were stripped from this world still seeking.
I am left asking myself many questions: about the conflict and its future, about human nature and its ability to change. Most of all, I turned the last few pages with a visceral yearning to visit the sites of the massacre to pay my respects—and somehow, honor those 100 and more human stories with the same respect which Yaron honored them
Yaron brings to life the many individuals and communities undermined by the mainstream media, interwoven with the story of their families and her own. Each story is a tile composing the very mosaic of Israel and the region itself, imprinted on the history of the country and humankind.
Yaron humanizes each of the victims with the dignity they deserve; I could almost see their faces—the smiles then sorrow of the children, the amnesty and anguish of the families, and the legacies that Israel’s eldest sought out, and were stripped from this world still seeking.
I am left asking myself many questions: about the conflict and its future, about human nature and its ability to change. Most of all, I turned the last few pages with a visceral yearning to visit the sites of the massacre to pay my respects—and somehow, honor those 100 and more human stories with the same respect which Yaron honored them
September 18, 2024
Wow. I have never cried so much reading a book.
This book is heartbreaking and painful to read but everyone needs to read this. These are the real stories of people who were attacked unprovoked, wether it was in their own homes or dancing at a music festival. Hamas doesn't differentiate if you’re American, Canadian, Israeli, they just wanted to kill, kidnap and rape.
This book only tells a fraction what people went through on October 7th, but it is so important to read and to continue telling their stories.
Thank you to Lee Yaron, St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. This comes out on September 24, 2024.
This book is heartbreaking and painful to read but everyone needs to read this. These are the real stories of people who were attacked unprovoked, wether it was in their own homes or dancing at a music festival. Hamas doesn't differentiate if you’re American, Canadian, Israeli, they just wanted to kill, kidnap and rape.
This book only tells a fraction what people went through on October 7th, but it is so important to read and to continue telling their stories.
Thank you to Lee Yaron, St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. This comes out on September 24, 2024.
October 6, 2024
I’m not sure I will ever be able to fully process the events that led to this book or even the words within the pages but Lee Yaron does a beautiful job of putting pen to paper. I would argue that this book is written void of emotion, and yet, is still able to pack a gut wrenching punch to your soul. I cannot emphasize enough how important these stories are. May the memories of these individuals and each and every victim of this tragedy be a blessing.
January 7, 2025
"If the deaths of 10/7 can be treated historically, in terms modern and factual, then Israel, too, can be treated as modern and factual, and inquests can be made into its failures, and policy solutions to its problems can be found; fanaticism can be de-incentivized, and through compromise even the most intransigent of enemies can be turned into neighbors, even the neighboring states."
Former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shared equal sentiments with Nazi Germany. And because of that one sentence near the back of her well written account, I was unable to rate her book any higher.
Ms. Yaron's account from the survivors of the Hamas attack on Israel on October seventh was thoroughly researched and balanced.
Ms. Yaron, furthermore, well researched the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
Former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shared equal sentiments with Nazi Germany. And because of that one sentence near the back of her well written account, I was unable to rate her book any higher.
Ms. Yaron's account from the survivors of the Hamas attack on Israel on October seventh was thoroughly researched and balanced.
Ms. Yaron, furthermore, well researched the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
October 16, 2024
I often say I read for escapism, but there are those rare times where a book comes out and demands to be read for the weight it carries. 10/7 by Lee Yaron is one of those books. This book is not one-size-fits-all—it highlights the individual experiences of a collective tragedy.
Listening to this book was not easy, much like a book about the Holocaust. But while it's not an enjoyable experience, it's an important one. We must bear witness to the tragedy that unfolded on October 7th. It’s not political; it’s human nature.
May the memories of each victim be a blessing.
Listening to this book was not easy, much like a book about the Holocaust. But while it's not an enjoyable experience, it's an important one. We must bear witness to the tragedy that unfolded on October 7th. It’s not political; it’s human nature.
May the memories of each victim be a blessing.
March 19, 2025
Wow. This truly left me speechless. I was SOBBING. The fact that this is real life is gut wrenching.
I have genuinely never felt so strongly about a collection of pages and words before , and then I stumbled upon this.
Lee Yaron beautifully communicates the stories of hostages, solders, temporary workers, grandmothers, children, affected by the October 7th massacre.
Page 142 absolutely broke me. Page 185 left my mouth gaping open. Page 259 had me feeling hysterical.
Everybody needs to read this. It’s so important.
I have genuinely never felt so strongly about a collection of pages and words before , and then I stumbled upon this.
Lee Yaron beautifully communicates the stories of hostages, solders, temporary workers, grandmothers, children, affected by the October 7th massacre.
Page 142 absolutely broke me. Page 185 left my mouth gaping open. Page 259 had me feeling hysterical.
Everybody needs to read this. It’s so important.
October 7, 2024
This is a deeply moving book about the genocidal terrorist attack on the Jewish people by the evil Hamas one year ago today. It evokes a lot of emotion- anguish, heartbreak, anger, disgust, and more.
I highly recommend reading this book, most especially those who make the claim that they care about the Palestinians.
I highly recommend reading this book, most especially those who make the claim that they care about the Palestinians.
February 9, 2025
This book took me about 4 months to read because I couldn't emotionally handle more than a chapter at a time. It was a gut wrenching portrayal of a number of victims of the October 7th massacres. This book is not political at all. But it's intense and graphic. I recommend buying it and reading it a bit at a time, as I did. It's an important way to bear witness to the atrocities.
October 3, 2024
It feels wrong giving this compilation of experiences and stories a rating. But I think every single human being should read this. It’s honest and real and is jarring and heartbreaking. It’s imperative the world opens their eyes about what occurred in Israel on October 7. Never again.
January 2, 2025
A must read for everyone.
Yaron tells the stories of survivors of the 10/7 terrorist attack in Israel.
I put this one off for so long because I knew it was going to be an incredibly heavy read and absolutely destroy me. It completely wrecked me multiple times, and I had to pause frequently because I could not stop crying.
Yaron handled the absolute toughest topics with the utmost care as she told the stories of those who survived 10/7. She heard firsthand accounts of those who survived but were not kidnapped on 10/7, and from multiple people who were kidnapped by Hamas on 10/7 and later released.
This book is truly just every sad & angry emotion you can experience. The emotional, mental, and physical ramifications that these beautiful humans will have to live with for the rest of their lives is devastating and heartbreaking.
If this one isn't on your TBR, it needs to be.
📍Israel & Gaza
✨Representation: honestly there are too many to name because Israel is so diverse, but both Jewish & SWANA
‼️Content: antisemitism; hate crime; terrorist attack; kidnapping; rape; sexual assault; murder; violence; graphic on page death, multiple times
Yaron tells the stories of survivors of the 10/7 terrorist attack in Israel.
I put this one off for so long because I knew it was going to be an incredibly heavy read and absolutely destroy me. It completely wrecked me multiple times, and I had to pause frequently because I could not stop crying.
Yaron handled the absolute toughest topics with the utmost care as she told the stories of those who survived 10/7. She heard firsthand accounts of those who survived but were not kidnapped on 10/7, and from multiple people who were kidnapped by Hamas on 10/7 and later released.
This book is truly just every sad & angry emotion you can experience. The emotional, mental, and physical ramifications that these beautiful humans will have to live with for the rest of their lives is devastating and heartbreaking.
If this one isn't on your TBR, it needs to be.
📍Israel & Gaza
✨Representation: honestly there are too many to name because Israel is so diverse, but both Jewish & SWANA
‼️Content: antisemitism; hate crime; terrorist attack; kidnapping; rape; sexual assault; murder; violence; graphic on page death, multiple times
October 23, 2024
This heart-wrenching, intimate collection of firsthand accounts from those affected by the October 07, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel is essential reading. The book captures the intense fear, pain, and loss experienced during and after the attack. Yaron’s objective and impartial storytelling provides a face to the victims, making this tragedy deeply personal and shedding light on the human cost of violence and war. Each story captures the raw emotions, courage, heartbreak, and resilience of survivors, victims, and their families.
October 7, 2024
Broken, broken, broken.
Read
October 21, 2024I don't think that I can bring myself to "rate" this book--not right now, anyway.
September 25, 2024
10/7, 100 human stories by Lee Yaron, weather on the Gaza Strip heading to the Dead Sea or just living in the Ukraine the stories of the atrocities put on people just trying to live their every day life is a travesty. I noticed this book has many one and two star ratings with no reviews and I have a gut feeling the really rating the author‘s opinion as a post to the great due diligence she did and telling the stories that we wouldn’t have heard any other way. Because I don’t get how anyone can read the story of Romy and her little sister witnessing their parents deaths
And everything the six-year-old went through to try and save her sister as well as Aiden an orphan Who at 16 thought he was going to die all because people didn’t like where he lived. when you bomb a kite show where the kites are flown high enough to let people in other countries know they’re doing it for unity or you go to music festival and shoot children whose religion you don’t even know for certain there’s something wrong with you so many people volunteer to get these dead children and adults back to their loved ones, after identifying them throughout the night under threat of more bombs and gunfire into rate this book one or two stars either you didn’t rate it, again you’re just rating the authors opinion. This is a sad book and what makes it even sadder is that it is all true and it all happened. Imagine sending your child to Coachella and people just swarm The festival and start killing everyone because they might be a certain religion. the stories were sad and devastating. The only thing I ever read equally as bad were stories about the holocaust. An most of these victims came from families who fled other places because they were being persecuted there… I read a review criticizing the author for not humanizing the people doing these killings and then my opinion that is assuming a lot to say they have any humanity at all. There’s two sides to every story that is true but I cannot imagine anyone rationalizing the actions in this book that was so well written and well told. They’re doing this for land in the twisted version of their religion nothing more. I would love to read something that makes these atrocities make sense. Just because a lot of people believe it doesn’t make it right millions of people agreed with Hitler and we still put a stop to that. #NetGalley, #SaintMartin’sPress, #LeeYaron, #10/7,
And everything the six-year-old went through to try and save her sister as well as Aiden an orphan Who at 16 thought he was going to die all because people didn’t like where he lived. when you bomb a kite show where the kites are flown high enough to let people in other countries know they’re doing it for unity or you go to music festival and shoot children whose religion you don’t even know for certain there’s something wrong with you so many people volunteer to get these dead children and adults back to their loved ones, after identifying them throughout the night under threat of more bombs and gunfire into rate this book one or two stars either you didn’t rate it, again you’re just rating the authors opinion. This is a sad book and what makes it even sadder is that it is all true and it all happened. Imagine sending your child to Coachella and people just swarm The festival and start killing everyone because they might be a certain religion. the stories were sad and devastating. The only thing I ever read equally as bad were stories about the holocaust. An most of these victims came from families who fled other places because they were being persecuted there… I read a review criticizing the author for not humanizing the people doing these killings and then my opinion that is assuming a lot to say they have any humanity at all. There’s two sides to every story that is true but I cannot imagine anyone rationalizing the actions in this book that was so well written and well told. They’re doing this for land in the twisted version of their religion nothing more. I would love to read something that makes these atrocities make sense. Just because a lot of people believe it doesn’t make it right millions of people agreed with Hitler and we still put a stop to that. #NetGalley, #SaintMartin’sPress, #LeeYaron, #10/7,
June 15, 2026
Heartbreaking collection of firsthand accounts that everyone should read
December 26, 2024
The introduction to this book was very real and filled with emotion. The stories contained within were heart-wrenching to read. These firsthand accounts of loss and devastation were tough to read, but really opened my eyes to yet another side of this ongoing conflict.
There was an obvious side to this book, and yet there was still the odd comment that demonstrated an unbiased look at the myriad starting points and reasons for this continuing unrest. I appreciated the views shared within its pages.
So many of the anecdotes from that day were absolutely horrifying. The terrible acts committed have certainly overshadowed any attempts to gain sympathy for their cause from the majority of the world. It is such an awful situation all the way around, and as usual, it is often the innocents who suffer the worst.
I am thankful to have read this book and gained yet another level of empathy and understanding.
There was an obvious side to this book, and yet there was still the odd comment that demonstrated an unbiased look at the myriad starting points and reasons for this continuing unrest. I appreciated the views shared within its pages.
So many of the anecdotes from that day were absolutely horrifying. The terrible acts committed have certainly overshadowed any attempts to gain sympathy for their cause from the majority of the world. It is such an awful situation all the way around, and as usual, it is often the innocents who suffer the worst.
I am thankful to have read this book and gained yet another level of empathy and understanding.
January 19, 2025
This is the second book I read about October 7th from the perspective of a Haaretz journalist. I found this one harder to read than The Gates of Gaza, but it is still an important read. I also wish the author, who is highly critical of her government, made it clear to her Western audience that "right-wing" and "left-wing" mean something very different in Israeli politics vs. American politics.
November 20, 2024
10/7: 100 Human Stories by Lee Yaron is a poignant look at specific stories that occurred on 10/7 in Israel. This book was so incredibly hard to read. It broke my heart and made me cry at the helpless people and their gruesome deaths. I received a digital of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.
November 29, 2024
This is a very sad book. It is a book about what happened in Gaza at the music festival. The media certainly didn’t talk about all this stuff. I think all those protesters who support Palestine really need to read this book and learned what really happened! It is the saddest thing ever!
December 12, 2024
A way to put names and faces and their stories to the many who were killed or hurt by Hamas on 10/7/23 and beyond. Although it is a quick read, Yaron does a beautiful job of bringing people to life and helps the world heal a little.
October 3, 2025
This book is one of the most comprehensive anthologies you’ll read about October 7, 2023- the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Lee Yarbon is a journalist Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper and after October 7th she used her journalistic skills to compile the stories of at least 100 survivors, the bereaved, and first responders. The stories go deeper than just their lives on Oct. 7. Each profile is a comprehensive picture as to who they were before that horrific day.
This truly reads as an oral history and while the book is hard and heavy, it is likely the most importantly telling of what occurred on October 7th and how it affected everyone regardless of where they were when Hamas invaded Israel.
This truly reads as an oral history and while the book is hard and heavy, it is likely the most importantly telling of what occurred on October 7th and how it affected everyone regardless of where they were when Hamas invaded Israel.
October 22, 2025
This book is extremely intense and graphic (some sections more than others, the section about the Nova Festival was particularly difficult.) The detail of so many of these stories is so painful but so important. Every victim of October 7th had a story that is worth telling and this book aims to tell many of those stories. This book does suffer a bit by being written too early before many details were filled in (though it was especially poignant hearing the story of Bipin Joshi right after his body was returned from Gaza to Israel) and I could do without the political commentary. I listened on audio which was pretty good, though there were a sprinkling of pronunciation issues.
August 4, 2025
Definitely one of the most difficult books I have ever read...Lee Yaron did a tremendous amount of research to learn details of those people murdered by the Gaza invasion on 10/7. The murdered people were from many different parts of the world, as well as native Israelis, yearning for a better life. People and their relatives were named. Their mochavs and kibutzim also were described in detail. Some of them worked together with Palestinians as an attempt to move towards mutual understanding and peace.
I found myself needing to move away from the book many times to be able to handle the deep emotions aroused; I must admit to being tearful numerous as well. But the truth must be told.
I found myself needing to move away from the book many times to be able to handle the deep emotions aroused; I must admit to being tearful numerous as well. But the truth must be told.
April 14, 2026
This was a powerful yet difficult and truly devastating book to read about October 7th. Each chapter focused on either a group of people, time in history, or part of Israel. Not only did it include families who were directly impacted by October 7th, but it included the aftermath of people whom were traumatized by what they either saw or heard about these attacks. Some of the accounts are extremely graphic, while others were just quick blips in the author’s narrative. Overall, it was an extremely well done book.
October 13, 2025
שלום read from Yom Kippur to today the day the last living hostages should be freed ... may the memory of October 7 2023 Jewish Arabs souls , Israeli martyrs of the 21st century be a blessing for the nation and the state of Israel ... our life feel small and meaningless in front of this level of hate ...
April 12, 2026
Difficult to read but important. I like how she shared history of the region too.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews